Because bouncing is what tiggers do best

love

I have hated particular people so much I have wished they were dead. I have hated all people in general so much that I wished humankind was wiped out. Ironically, I will most likely just barely miss that apocalypse.

All this hate is probably because my mom would scream at me that I deserved to go to Hell.

I don’t believe in Hell beyond the very real pain of unhappy living and others’ experience of unhappiness in an afterlife I would not witness seems too remote for wish fulfillment purposes.

Instead, hoping their agency and ability to interfere in my life ends completely is much more rational in the regard that it really is about actual benefits, like control.

So, I hate my son’s paternal grandmother and want her story to be over and retold by someone as unsympathetic to her as I am because she certainly is unsympathetic, self-sabotaging, and possibly delusional in her perspective of me (except for the fact I am blogging about wishing her dead so clearly I can’t be an angel, except perhaps of death–eh, that’s not a funny joke).

I’ve wished my mother dead periodically because of her relentless, unrestrained judgment about my life that put me on the defensive from birth and caused low self-esteem and depression my entire life. Children who aren’t accepted struggle to feel loved. And I have suicidal ideation, self-harm, and interpersonal drama for what is now two-thirds of my life. I honestly can’t remember what not wanting to cease to live feels like. So, thanks for never telling me you believed in me or even good job and always pointing out my flaws or even just what you percieved as flaws in me, laughing at or ignoring my pain, and letting me feel completely isolated and desperate to feel connection. Who needs enemies when family seems like practically the same thing.

I’ve wanted horrible people who didn’t care about me to die despite the fact that I could have decided that I deserved better and cut them out of my life for MY benefit and just let the seething hatred go by reclaiming my autonomy and allow only positive into my life.

I probably believe I deserve to experience life as Hell for having opinions or standards others’ don’t so I can try to earn my way to affection and connection because clearly I never escaped my psychological issues from my childhood. I try to get people who treat me in painful ways to stop rather than protect myself by ending the relationship because self-awareness came later.

The ability to severe ties with people who become toxic to you is limited by the perception of lacking agency, worth, and opportunities. And it makes sense to think that way if that is simply carrying over from my childhood where I depended on my parents and the best I could hope for was to try to convince them to love me. A child who doesn’t believe in herself nor rejects disrespect or hostility directed at her doesn’t suddenly change her beliefs at 18 because now she’s an adult.

So instead, after repeatedly being beaten or just worn down, I would hate someone enough to wish they would die.

And particularly now, I hate some horribly selfish man who for 4 years has gone from subtly abusing me to full out verbal and psychological assault. My life, without fear of reprisals and future interactions, would be better. If he was out of my life and I didn’t have to see him again, I would have a significant source of stress out of my life.

Sure, I would still have stress and maybe stress related to his absence but I wouldn’t need to employ defensive strategies to protect myself from an abuser. I could start to work to feel safe and secure in myself.

I wouldn’t have more opportunities to make mistakes by letting him manipulate or coerce me into letting him control me and dictate the conditions of my life. He wouldn’t have more opportunities to remind me that I should hate myself for letting him hurt me or because he hates me. Instead, I could work on reminding myself I am okay enough to try to live. Without the constant reminder that a person deeply embedded in my life doesn’t accept or love me and the constant criticisms to change aren’t my own.

It’s hard to love yourself when you let people who don’t become too close to you.

Presently, I really hate him every time I remember all the pain he’s caused me with no remorse, all the wrongs he never set out to right, and all the chances I gave him since the first time we met which should have been the last if I was braver, smarter, and healthier.

I don’t think I would have seen him a second time if I had healthy self-esteem. Or definitely not after the third meeting. Disrespect is really internalized if you let someone do that to you from the beginning and a person willing to do that to a stranger is never going to be respectful.

So, 4 years later I hate him as much as I hate myself and it’s absolutely certain my life is better without him in it as anyone else I know has told me. But because I am suicidal, when this man told me he had suicidal thoughts 4 years ago, I had so much empathy and therefore sympathy for him.

However, when he told me the same words 2 months ago, I felt annoyed at first, then sad and worried for him, but finally just dumb and angry. I felt annoyed because this is the man that told me that he didn’t care if I live or die, that he doesn’t want to know if I feel suicidal because he doesn’t want to help, it’s just unpleasant to hear about, and that he values other people more than me, especially to help him. Then he calls me saying he is suicidal in the middle of the night, despite the late hour from the PST and EST time difference and despite having self-reported more helpful friends to call, and despite his apathy regarding my existence entirely. But I am supposed to tell him I want him to keep living. I’m supposed to tell someone that doesn’t care about me that his life is so important to me despite it being fairly obvious to everyone else that he causes immense pain in my life with no remorse and increasing more likely purposefully. After all, it must feel good to be in control of another human and then insult and degrade a person or demand praise from them entirely at one’s own whim.

Thankfully I was asleep and his calls weren’t coming through because I didn’t have the opportunity to blurt out, “But I hate you and your selfish, hypocritical ways.” Later though, imagining how much pain he might be experiencing because of how painful suicidal thoughts are for me, I really felt sorry for him and wanted to try to help.

But then after a few days of misplaced empathy and when he’s behavior returned to normal, I remembered why I hate him. And remembered that I have seen him suicidal at the most convenient times to manipulate a situation with me, his family, and apparently again just then with me.

But I always thought, I don’t want to say, “Go ahead, kill yourself” because it’s truly awful to hear from anyone, much less from someone you hope will somehow help AND what if he really is suicidal?

I mean, deep down I know he’s just acting because he doesn’t understand how hard it is to kill yourself and he hasn’t considered methodology, and his reasoning for not killing himself is only his parents but logically he is the biggest cause of stress, pain and disappointment in their lives. Of course they would never want him to end his life, but imagining their tearful reactions to hearing the news compared to the past decade of disappointment and monetary losses they’ve already suffered by him and most likely will continue to suffer because honestly, he says shit like, “I don’t care about my dad’s feelings,” “My parents will pay for it,” and he bullies his mother and reduces her to tears. So, again, there’s questionable math involved if he’s solely basing his continued life on the impact it has on his parents.

All that questionable data regarding his reported experience with suicidal ideation combined with hindsight of 4 years of manipulative abuse makes suicide seem like the ultimate threat to use against his parents and a sure-fire way to use my own experience and empathy to control me.

But, I still hesitate to say, “You should kill yourself.” After all, isn’t there some possibility he does actually feel suicidal at times?

I have in the past, during moments of crazy, exasperated frustration when dealing with him, blurted out I really do wish he was dead. And maybe if he was suicidal there’d be no semantic distinction between my wish and should. However, as of yet, clearly he hasn’t taken it as such and lives on and continues to attempt to torment me.

And I continue to suffer blinding, destructive hatred and struggle to free myself from him, other people, and my internalized wounds that create it.

After all, even I know wishing other people dead is coming from a place of dysfunction or lack of wellness. Including a lack of sleep. Sleep is super important. It’s harder to love life and people in a sleep-deprived headache and pessimism.

Trying to convince someone to you without putting your best foot forward is tough. Trying to convince someone to love you when you don’t like them is disastrous. Trying to convince someone to love you when you don’t love yourself is impossible.
I try to think of a good match as a checklist. Does this person do this, this, and this? Being vegan is good, although I haven’t been able commit to a vegan diet myself. But you know, I would like to, someday. There’s probably a reason people talk about living your life authentically or living your best life before meeting the person of your dreams. Also people say don’t date someone’s potential for similar reasons. I might never become a vegan.
But let’s move on. So this person has hit enough on the checklist to be interesting: used to be vegan, traveled, highly educated, wanted to live abroad, and liberal. Good so far. And let’s talk some more and talk more often. But here’s something that is a big clash. Oh, that was a big no. Doesn’t believe in monogamy in marriage? Likes pets more than people and finds it hard to connect?
Why not let go? Honestly, I am too desperate alone to let go first. Maybe there is some chance… one of us will change? I don’t want to be that one. I don’t want to have superficial conversations or be silly. I don’t want to sit in the same room just on our phones or computers instead of being together in more than just proximity? I don’t want to spend Fridays alone because friends come first. But if I won’t change, do I really expect the other person to change? To love me unconditionally while I want them to lose all the undesirable parts. Or maybe we can compromise. I can try to live with this and expect slack on this. But I have never had this arrangement last for long. Who breaks first? I can’t remember so that’s a good indicator it was me.
But people say you have to let go of what isn’t working to make room in your life for what will. Compromising won’t work long-term without deep commitment to the belief that this particular compromise is the best compromise to be had or there is too much to lose. But I never feel that assured. I imagine it could be better. I imagine someone more similar to me that doesn’t set off warning bells by telling me things I don’t want to which become accustomed. I imagine someone that is like a best friend, instead of a boxing partner. Or I think, wouldn’t it be great if I smiled just thinking about this person instead of indifferent? Or I think, wouldn’t it be great if this person wanted to talk to me or see me first, instead of me feeling like I alone want to connect? I think, wouldn’t it be great to be with someone else?
But I hang on, waiting for this person to decide. I ruin it. By being my awful self too raw and honest too soon. Or by becoming distant or cold. Or by demanding so much and so often. Maybe it could have worked. Maybe it could have never worked. It definitely did not work.
Because love isn’t love until you love yourself by living authentically and letting go of those that don’t bring joy and goodness (more than grief) into your life.

To my surprise, there were two answers. I thought compromise was part of every relationship and no relationship could be smooth-sailing. And secondly, I honestly didn’t believe there were people like me. I didn’t feel as though I connected with more than a handful (read less than or equal to 5) of people in my life. Every other relationship has been strained with substantial, almost daily chafing difference.
A similar question of why I was spending my time with people I didn’t even like, was a result of similar reasoning. I had been trying to accommodate myself to fit school friends, college boyfriends, and later, all sorts of random people. My mother once asked me why I was trying to get back together with a boyfriend I didn’t even like. It was a pretty revelatory statement that opened my eyes to the truth: I didn’t want to be rejected, even by someone I otherwise wouldn’t want in my life.

I spent so much time trying to be someone else for others. While complaining of others’ failings and my attempts to live with these people, I was asked, “Why don’t you just live according to your own standards?”

Again, the answer surprised me. I didn’t think my standards mattered as much as those of the people I was trying to change myself to be accepted by. I didn’t agree with their standards, so I always felt tension in the relationships. But I didn’t leave, armed in the knowledge I was being true to myself. Instead, I sunk to ‘their level’. I lived my life according to the principles and behavior that I myself disagreed with. And why, oh god, why? Because I didn’t think there were people with my values and that I had to compromise to have any friends and not be lonely. I was desperately lonely. I found interpersonal connection hard to create. I didn’t find people who I felt like I could be myself around.

So now, self-aware of these insights, in a romantic relationship I want to be true to myself and find someone like me. With the same professed values, interests, humor, and lifestyle. As a friend once said, “After you marry, the relationship will stay the same or might get worse. But it never gets better.” But combined with a ticking clock, loneliness, and less than stellar self-esteem, I find myself in my same old habit of trying to wriggle into a fit with someone.

Anecdotally, I often try clothing or shoes once very quickly and decide it fits. I purchase it, cut the tags and then wear it for an entire day, at which by the end of said day I am very uncomfortable or in pain. The item doesn’t fit right.

I find the same in relationships. I get so excited initially at what I see as a great fit with a glamourous new man (and rarely, a woman). Then, within weeks, I realize this person is very different from me. I have just jumped in the deep end of infatuation and desperation and now I am drowning, trying to figure out how the relationship can be managed to fit.

Clearly I need to be more patient, discerning, and selective. It would help if I could catch a break and finally meet someone that’s really similar to me. That’d be lovely.

The typical love story is boy meets girl, they get married, buy a dog or cat, have kids, then grow old.

Now same sex couples can openly be together and have children. Possibly not what barren heterosexual Christian couples embracing reproductive technological advances had in mind.

But shouldn’t children be regarded as a blessing? Even to unwed mothers, even to homosexual couples, even to couples that divorce. A person’s personal feeling on a particular child may be complicated or negative, but shouldn’t society as a whole embrace the children of their future continuation?
As Andrew Solomon wrote, “I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones. I espouse reproductive libertarianism, because when everyone has the broadest choice, love itself expands. The affection my family have found in one another is not a better love, but it is another love, and just as species diversity is crucial to sustain the planet, this diversity strengthens the ecosphere of kindness.”

Personally as a single mom, I am looking for additive love. Someone that loves me and first baby, and will want to have more children. Someone whose parents and family will love all my children. That siblings of different blood to all be loved equally. To be a whole family, even if one child has a different father. To have an abundance of love, instead of restricting it to mere biology.

I have struggled to keep my baby’s father involved. I know his family wanted only the baby, not me. Definitely not me with another love relationship and definitely not half-blood siblings.

This makes me sad. Will my son have to go on solo trips to see his father and the rest of their family? If I get married and have more children, will we go as well and have a separate vacation from my son? That makes me sad, thinking about separating siblings because of the complicated and proprietary feelings of adults.

I still work very hard to keep my son connected with the other half of his family. It’d be easier and less painful to cut off contact. But the idea of my son having more family to love him is important to me.

It’d be wonderful to have all three families together to celebrate life’s special moments. Right now, it’s hard to imagine. Because it’s difficult to imagine people genuinely being happy for others, generous, unselfish, and optimistic. The idea of people believing in an infinite additive love instead of our traditional redactive model.

And I told him I wanted to live in Asia. And he told me he didn’t want to live in Asia.

So, that’s it.

Great listener, sweet, accommodating, chivalrous, interesting and passionate guy that I don’t want to see anymore. He was also tall.

But I have dreams to ride the subways and bullet trains, eat food from stalls and food carts, visit the beach, sing karaoke, walk the little alley ways, shop at the street fairs, visit the temples, drink fancy teas and lattes in the eclectic coffee shops, and feel the strangeness of a world apart from ordinary.

It’s like out a movie: drying clothes on the balcony or roof on a line, walking everywhere on paved roads and sidewalks, quietness on the mountainside, clean and clear taste of green tea, the furniture and design of the homes, seeing a rural house of wood in the old design, and a crane on the river.

I miss my adventure. I miss the excitement of the first six months in an utterly foreign environment that has the same blue sky.

So, do I want to give up the one goal I could accomplish? Do I let my dream die to not be alone?

Or am I willing to be alone now to not give up on my dream?

I used to want to be with someone no matter how I had to change. I believed in compromise and adjustments. But I was alone anyway. Romantic relationships didn’t last. The person I truly am was not loved. I wasn’t even considered seriously.

But now, I want to hold onto myself. I want to value my feelings, hopes, successes, failures, beliefs, and self-respect. Joan Didion wrote, “However long we post- pone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously un-comfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.”

And so, in the end, we are all alone in ourselves. I have to sleep by myself at night.

Today, I was surprised to hear talk that held out to its logical conclusion as presented meant poor people should not procreate. Should not is different from have not, but even in America there has been cases of women undergoing forced sterilizations. The systematic control of reproduction is called eugenics.

So they say poor people shouldn’t have the experience of having children. In some countries, people are so poor they can’t afford marriage: the ceremonies, legal registration, bridal price or family gifts, much less separate housing and again, the children.

Are these essential relationships? Humans are made to connect. Perhaps we don’t need to be mothers or father or spouses or partners. But nevertheless we need connection. For my part, it grieves me to tears to think of poverty keeping families from forming. It’s perhaps not essential but often the most meaningful aspect of living. It’s certain there is a biological imperative to procreate.

Understanding that so much of our life is the circumstances we were born into and luck or chance, is it right that “the least of these” are absolutely judged or possibly prevented from having the love that forming a family creates?

I read the last comment on my blog. Then I read the post. Then I copied paragraphs of the post and searched them online. My post was the first result.

Crap.

I wrote it. It’s tone is so unlike my own.

Well, it’s unlike my own now. It’s from my days before mood stabilizers and anti-depressants.

Did I write it for E, who less than a year later would break up with me? But we weren’t even officially a couple. Did I write it for the Korean boy that broke my heart, married some other woman, and I have never seen since? More likely.

But perhaps not. The other love letters were to myself. My unloved self, aching for affection. As through the mouth of the dramatic, romantic lover I wanted and as of yet have never found.

And it is powerfully intense. The writing of one not yet under the stupor of the artificial deadening produced by drugs. Bipolar is the clinic diagnosis.

The drugs have lessen the roller-coaster, but never prevented it’s descent. Depression still comes. Joy does not. And obviously creativity has died. I didn’t even recognize the piece as my own.

My fear in 2006 was that psychiatric treatment would change me. I resisted for 6 years until a suicidal depression that stole my waking hours, extra pounds, and all possibility of happiness. Then I crawled towards anything that could save me, including therapy and medicine.

Now 5 years later, the evidence is in. I have been changed so thoroughly I can’t recognize myself. It’s a bit troubling as I have traded that intensity and creativity for periods of low energy, neutrality, and mediocrity. Only lapses in the reoccurring suicidal depression that causes tears and confines me to bed. So, I have lost heights to prevent valleys that yet I still travel. I quit writing. Maybe I have made a horrible mistake.

I might be an incurable idiot. The first guy I fell in love with awful. For almost a year after he married someone else, I still missed him. I was severely depressed, lost a lot weight (so I looked great), and still cried almost daily. I hardly could get out of bed and couldn’t work. I was miserable and couldn’t control my feelings and thoughts at night when I tried to sleep.So, being an incurable idiot, I finally decided to start dating. It was something to do. I got out of the house, hung out with someone I knew was interested in me, and usually got a free meal so I didn’t need to buy groceries at all. I had plenty of time because I had no friends nor a job. Finally I met someone I felt comfortable with. He wasn’t serious about me and as an incurable idiot, I thought it was a good idea to try to change his mind. I barely considered that it might be a bad idea to chase a guy I barely knew. But with him, I forgot the first guy. With him, I was sometimes euphoric and sometimes miserable. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. Within a year, we broke up. He was willing to be friends but I couldn’t accept that. After all, I couldn’t imagine dating anyone else. I was awful and he had to quit communicating with me entirely. Again, I was severely depressed. Again I lost weight. Again, I cried almost daily. The crying in which you lose your breath and periodically can’t make a sound. And again for almost a year, I didn’t get over this feeling. I dated for a while, eventually I didn’t think about him everyday or cry all the time. I spent time with friends and was cheerful again. But periodically, depression would hit me all over again. I still missed him. I couldn’t help but compare other guys to him. It’s idiotic and unfair. I remember him selective, everyone is an unique person, and I can’t rely on my momentary feelings as a rational judge of an relationship. But I never felt as happy with anyone else. I try to accept that. It’s been four years. When we broke up, he said maybe we could get back together. A friend admitted she once said that to get a clingy, emotionally unstable boyfriend so he’d let go of the relationship at the time. She knew she never would want to date him again. As an incurable idiot I still held out hope he’d come back or talk to me. Today, I miss him. At times, for months, I don’t even think about him. However, I’ve realized with big changes in my life, I miss him all over again. It hurts not to be able to talk with him. I wonder what his life has brought him. I still compare the happiness I felt just being next to him to all the guys I never feel that way about. As an incurable idiot, I still, after all these years, want to be a couple again. Even though we broke up for reasons that haven’t changed. And I was miserable at times. And no one around us thought we were a lasting match. And he never felt the way I did about him. Or so I believed. Rationally I know we will never talk or see each other again. It is the reality and it is for the best. But today I miss him overwhelmingly and I am crying. Again. And I wonder, “Will I ever stop having this horrible feeling about him”